Monday, August 31, 2015

The subtitle to Jacob Tomsky’s memoir, Heads in Beds, tells the book’s potential readers pretty much what
to expect from it.That subtitle reads: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and
So-Called Hospitality, placing the book firmly in that category of insider
looks at various service industries – anything, say, from restaurants to cab
drivers to hotels, and the like.In
almost every case, the author of these books comes across as some combination
of angry, fed up, sarcastic, demeaning toward customers, and just plain
nasty.Tomsky does not come across as
angry about his plight in life as some of the other writers of these memoirs, but
he does conform to the general pattern via his sarcasm and condescending
attitude toward those seeking shelter for a night or two in whatever
establishment happens to employ him at the time.

Jacob Tomsky is one of those unfortunate college graduates
who completed his education in a field that does not exactly offer great odds
of employment upon graduation: Philosophy (if I remember correctly).All most by accident, Tomsky - a military
brat with no real roots - began his hospitality career in New Orleans as a hotel
parking valet, one of those guys largely dependent upon tips for the bulk of
his spending money.And he did well,
learning all the little tricks that bring larger tips along the way, a lesson
that will serve him well no matter what position he holds in the industry.

Author Jacob Tomsky

He did so well, in fact, that within months he was plucked
from the car-parker ranks and placed in charge of over 100 people responsible
for cleaning and preparing rooms for the next day’s guests.And, despite his obvious lack of enthusiasm
about his new position, he did well enough with it to be moved again, this time
to the front desk where he was able to put his tip-harvesting skills to good
use.(I hope I have not chronologically
flipped these two positions, but I don’t have a copy of the book with which to
check my memory.)

Sadly, however, Tomsky seems to feel that he has become
trapped forever (primarily because that is all he has ever done) in a lifetime
spent greeting hotel guests, lying to them, and ultimately milking them for
every extra dime he can squeeze out of them.He does not want to be there, but it is all he knows.Thus, the sarcasm of his tone and the
language he uses to describe his experiences with guests, co-workers,
prostitutes, and hotel management.That
is not to say that Tomsky does not tell some interesting anecdotes in Heads in Beds, because he does.Some of them are funny, some are sad, and
more than a few are disgusting, so he does deliver everything promised by the
book’s subtitle.

Some readers, especially those who believe hotels are
ripping them off, will find one section of the book to be particularly
interesting.This is a list of tips and
reasons that hotels will almost certainly always remove any disputed charges to
the room minibar or movie services.In the end, however, Heads in Beds is pretty much just another memoir exposé of a type
that has just about been done to death now.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Actress Scarlett Johannson really, really wants French author Grégoire Delacourt's novel Le Première Chose Qu'on Regarde (The First Thing You See) banned. But it is not going to happen. Instead, the book is being translated and published in the U.K. by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on September 10.Johannson did win a portion of the lawsuit she filed against the French publisher of the novel, but she prevailed on only one count of the suit and collected only a small portion of the amount she was demanding. According to The Guardian:

“All of Scarlett Johansson’s demands were rejected except one thing that was seen to be an attack in her private life over two relations that she never had,” Emmanuelle Allibert of the publishers J-C Lattès told the Guardian at the time. “All her other demands … were rejected, notably that there should be a ban on the book being translated or made into a film. We just have to cut out the bit about the affairs.”

The novel's plot does sound rather interesting: a man begins a relationship with a woman he believes to be Johannson, only to learn that she is really just a Scarlett Johannson lookalike. Delacourt describes his novel this way:

“So I asked myself, as an old advertiser, a young writer, and a father of a normal age, what we were doing to our children to stop them liking themselves as they were. And I suspected that appearances (fashion, models, actors) had become a more important model than what is inside.”

So what do you think? Should writers be allowed to use real celebrities as fictional characters in their books, novels in which they can place those celebrities into whatever positions or circumstances they believe move the story along? The judge in Johannson's lawsuit did, in fact, rule that she was defamed by the book but he also ruled that the book can be translated and published around the world. Is he right?

Friday, August 28, 2015

Way back in January 2008, I started a post category that I labeled as "Readers." I use the label to highlight a special kind of reader, a person whose love of books has inspired them to do something that will likely change the lives of others. If you check my sidebar, you will see that this is the 80th posting I've made about "Readers" in what is almost now eight years. So they are out there...and people notice them and love them for what they do. This guy, though, is definitely one of my favorites out of all eighty people I've highlighted.Twenty-four-year-old Philani Dladla has become known as Johannesburg's "Pavement Bookworm" because of how he supports himself by selling books on the corners of that city's streets. But Philani is no ordinary panhandler or recycler of books he finds in the trash. Philani, you see, only sells books he has himself read and he offers a detailed book review with each purchase - and prices his books according to how much he enjoyed them. But there is a whole lot more even than that to this man's story, and One.org has the rest of the story:“With some self-motivation and a lot of self-help books, I made the decision to stop taking drugs. But while I was helping myself I also wanted to help the other people I had been living on the streets with. So I started using the money I got from selling books to buy everyone soup and bread everyday instead of spending that money on drugs. Seeing their smiles motivated me to keep using the little I had to spread happiness. From that point on, I knew I never wanted to go back to being a drug addict.”Click on the One.org line to learn more about Philani. And if you are still not sold on this guy, take a look at this YouTube video in which he explains himself in great detail:

Philani mentions in this segment that he is working on his memoirs and, while there are not a lot of 24-year-olds whose memoirs I would be much interested in, I would love to see his story get published. He is an amazing young man.Post #2,547

Thursday, August 27, 2015

The Fixer is my
first experience with a Joseph Finder novel, and I have to admit that near the
beginning of the book I experienced one of those “been there, done that”
moments that had me questioning my intent to finish it.But I persisted, and that turned out to be a
good decision on my part because, in the process, I found out just how good a
storyteller Finder is.

The “been there, done that” moment hit me when I realized
that the thriller’s basic plot sounded very familiar to me.Many, if not most, people have probably read
at least one book, or seen at least one movie, in which the main character
stumbles upon a small fortune in cash, or gold, or jewels, etc.Then, in a weak moment, our hero decides to
keep his find all for himself.Bad move,
that – and the rest of the story involves the guy trying to keep from being
maimed or killed by the bad guys who want their loot back.Well, that is the basic premise of The
Fixer.But Finder throws so many
twists and turns, fun characters, and side plots into his story that I could
not wait to see what was coming next and ended up quite enjoying the book.

Rick Hoffman’s (our hero) friends would probably agree that
his judgment is not always the best.Once a well respected up-an-coming investigative reporter, Rick made
what turned out to be a terrible mistake by letting a slick Boston magazine
hire him away from his newspaper job.Now the magazine has failed and Rick, along with most all of his
co-workers, is history.Things have
gotten so bad, in fact, that Rick is camping out in his father’s old house, an
unheated structure that seems just about ready to fall down around him.

Author Joseph Finder

Rick’s luck changes -but not for the better - when he finds
a large stash of cash hidden in the old house by his father.How did it get there?Does it belong to his father, who has not
lived in the house for eighteen years, or to someone his father had been hiding
it from?Rick, though, can’t resist the
lure of all that cash, and when he starts throwing hundred-dollar bills around,
he draws the notice of some very bad people – and they want their money
back.But, even more, they want Rick to
stop trying to figure out why it was in his father’s house in the first place.

If The Fixer is
typical of Finder’s writing, the man certainly knows how to tell a good story
and give his readers a fun ride. This definitely
will not be the last Joseph Finder title I read.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Ready for another great story about how one avid reader, in this case a man with an especially huge heart, can impact the lives of hundreds of poor children?Well, let me introduce you to 53-year-old Jose Gutierrez, a garbage truck driver in Bogota, Columbia. Gutierrez, himself an avid reader of the classic authors and more current literary fiction, just could not stand to see the books he found on his route through the wealthier areas of the city to be destroyed. He took them home instead...and according to this U.S. News report, he starting sharing them with the kids in his neighborhood.

He says books are luxuries for boys and girls in low-income neighborhoods such as his, with new reading material at bookstores too expensive. There are 19 public libraries in Bogota, a city of 8.5 million, but tend to be located far away from poorer areas.

"This should be in all neighborhoods, on each corner of every neighborhood, in all the towns, in all departments, and all the rural areas," says Gutierrez. "Books are our salvation and that is what Colombia needs."

20,000 books and counting. Readers are, indeed, very special people. (Bythe way, I see that Anne Rice has taken to calling avid readers "People of the Page." I smile every time I see that.Post #2,545

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

I have no idea what Hollow Man is about, and Mark Pryor is not an author I'm familiar with...but I really like the book trailer to publicize the novel that Mr. Pryor has put together with a lot of help from his children. Well done, guys.I've said it often, but this one reminds me again of the power of a very short book trailer to place a book I would have otherwise never have heard of on my radar screen. I may still never actually read it, but if I spot it in a bookstore, I will most certainly take a longer look at it than I would have before watching the trailer. And that is what book trailers are all about, really.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Fans of the Poke Rafferty series will, of course, know that The Fourth Watcher (2008) was Timothy Hallinan’s second entry into the series. As the novel opens, Poke has decided that his new family (Rose, the former bar girl he hopes to marry, and Miaow, the little girl he plucked off the streets of Bangkok for her own good) is the most important thing in the world to him. He wants to abandon the travel book series he’s been writing so that the three of them can settle comfortably into a stable lifestyle.

If only her were so lucky.

Rose and her business partner Peachy are finally having a bit of success with the maid service they run using former bar girls as cleaning crews. By now, with the help of Poke’s investment into the business, Rose and Peachy have given several young women the opportunity to leave the sordid lifestyle associated with Thailand’s sex trade industry. But now, the business has inadvertently become linked to what appears to be a North Korean counterfeiting ring – an operation that takes no prisoners.

And then things really get complicated. Two people from Poke’s past, one of whom he didn’t even know existed, come into his world just when he can least afford the distraction. Poke already has an American Secret Service man after him who would love nothing better than to lock him up for a good long time; now he has to deal with a reunion that will prove to be as dangerously deadly as anything he has ever faced in his life. He and Arthit, the Thai policeman who is Poke’s best friend in the world, are going to have to scramble if they are going to save the lives of those closest to them.

The real strength of the Poke Rafferty series is Hallinan’s well-developed recurring characters. Poke, Rose, Miaow, and Arthit all come with emotional baggage of their own but they meld into a unit that offers each of them exactly the emotional support, love, and friendship they need to finally make something good of their lives. It won’t be easy, but let it be known that they are still doing fine some five books (and counting, I hope) after The Fourth Watcher.

That said, because I have read the series out of order, I can also tell you that the books get even better as the series ages. This one emphasizes the “thriller” aspect of the plot to the point that it becomes a bit overcomplicated in the end. I prefer more “literary” thrillers (yes, I believe there is such a thing), and that’s exactly the direction Hallinan, over time, moves the Poke Rafferty series. Don’t miss ‘em.Post #2,543

Sunday, August 23, 2015

I saw someone wearing this A Farewell to Arms t-shirt yesterday and it was such an eye-catcher that I had to ask about it. As it turns out, there are a bunch of shirts in the series, all of them using thousands of words from literary classics as background for the illustrations featured on the shirts. The back of the shirt is solid text from the Hemingway classic. From even a slight distance, it appears to be a gray t-hirt, but get a little closer and...boom! You realize what you are looking at. Click here to reach the Litograph websitewhere you can see the whole collection of shirts - and lots of other bookish things for sale.I imagine that most of the shirts on offer will be best appreciated by women, but there are plenty of choices for guys, too. Hemingway is well represented, for instance, and others, such as The Jungle (by Upton Sinclair) that men will feel comfortable wearing.

The Jungle

Middlemarch

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The number of choices is actually a little bit overwhelming - and the company also sells posters, tattoos, and totes - so take a look and see if any of them appeal to you. They are not cheap, but if you read how they are produced (via a process that means they will never fade) one by one, the price makes more sense.Post #2,542

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Seldom has a book irritated me as much as J.S. Law’s debut
novel Tenacity.And that is saying a lot, because over a
lifetime of reading, I have been exposed to some real stinkers.So what makes Tenacity stand out?

Well, how about this?The thriller is intended to introduce a character that will continue on
in a whole series of books about her exploits as an investigator in Britain’s
Special Investigation Branch’s “Kill” Team.In layman terms, that means that she is a homicide detective who works
on cases involving military personnel.Nothing wrong with that and, in fact, that is a proposition just
different enough to intrigue readers who might be a bit bored with the more
usual crime fiction environments out there.

But Danielle “Dan” Lewis, God bless her heart, is a slow
learner.The book opens with a bit of
Dan’s backstory, a story in which her stubbornness and failure to trust her
team enough to have someone provide backup for her almost got her killed.Only her physical agility and a whole lot of
luck allowed her to survive a physical confrontation with the serial killer she
and her team were trying to identify.But did she learn anything from that escapade…you know, maybe about
making sure a backup is in place next time she goes snooping in an isolated
place?Apparently not, because Tenacity ends (if you can call it an
ending – more on that in a minute) just about where it begins: with Dan Lewis
fighting for her life, alone, in a desperate situation in which she has no
right to expect that she will survive.

Law does a good job in developing the Dan Lewis
character.Despite my low opinion of her
common sense and ability to recognize death traps, I think I understand the
character and what makes her do such stupid things.The author even managed to give a little
depth to two of the book’s side-characters, a couple of men who try desperately
to protect her from herself but are so frustrated with her that they have just
about had it.

Submariner and Author J.S. Law

Much of Tenacity
takes place within the confines of a nuclear submarine in which Dan has
inserted herself as the only female on board – with predictable results.I enjoyed learning aboutthe day-to-day routines in that kind of
environment and a little bit about what makes submariners tick.They are a special breed, and Law, being one
of them, knows what he is talking about and it all seems very real.That is the real strength of Tenacity because the plot, although
interesting, is not all that surprising.But just when I was prepared to give the book a 3.5-star rating, I read
the last few pages.And exploded.

The book has no ending.It just abruptly stops after setting up a cliffhanger that will
presumably lead to Book Two of the Dan Lewis series.No, no, no…that does not work.I consider it less than honest to pull this
stunt unless the publisher slaps a warning label on the book cover so that I
can decide up front whether or not I want to invest five or six hours of my life
in reading such a book.This is the kind
of literary misstep that, in my estimation, is worth at least a one-star
deduction on any book.Reader beware.

(Advance Reader’s
Edition of the book provided by the publisher for review)

Friday, August 21, 2015

Hard as it might be to believe, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is part of the American
Library Association’s “Most Challenged Books of the 21st
Century” list. Way too often, small-minded
people manage to wrangle just enough political power to do harm to those wiser
than themselves, as is the case with those who strive to keep Of Mice and Men out of public and school
libraries.They complain that the book
is “anti-business” or that it condones euthanasia, or that it is filled with
racial slurs and overtones.God bless
their little hearts.

The book was written in 1936 and it is very much a
reflection of its author and his times, a period during which men were often
driven to wandering the country, taking whatever work they could get to sustain
themselves for another day.Such was the
case for George Milton and Lennie Small, two men who had known each other since
childhood.George has always looked out
for his friend Lennie because the huge Lennie is too slow-witted to take care
of himself.George tells Lennie
constantly how much easier his life would be without him having to worry about Lennie
all the time but, truth be told, he would probably be lost without Lennie.

As the two approach the farm where they have found new work,
George tells Lennie to keep his mouth closed, to let George do the talking
until they have been accepted.And even
though Lennie “forgets” to do so, they manage to become part of the harvesting
crew.All goes well, and the crew bosses
are especially impressed with Lennie’s strength and production, until Lennie
starts to exhibit some of his peculiar ways.Lennie is a giant who has no real conception of his own strength, and he
is a man prone to panic – a lethal combination in a man Lennie’s size.

Author John Steinbeck

Throw into the mix a previous misunderstanding between
Lennie and a little girl that he and George are still running from, a batch of
new puppies that Lennie too much loves to pet, and the boss’s pugnacious son
and the son’s flirting wife, and you have all the makings of an inevitable
tragedy.And happen, it does.

Steinbeck wrote Of
Mice and Men with a stage production of the story always in mind.The book’s six chapters are grouped in pairs
meant to be adaptable into a three-act play and, in fact, Of Mice and Men has enjoyed great success both on the stage and on
the screen.

And there are still those out there who want to ban this
wonderfully moving story.Unbelievable.

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